RP: All over again Date & Time: 4 September 2002 Post Type: RP Status: Open: Public Characters: Rita Skeeter, anyone. Location: Diagon Alley, London Summary: Rita picks up a copy of the competition on her way to work.
Morning was Rita's favourite time of day. When the birds woke, so did she, full of the smell of morning and the promise of day. It was a beetle thing, she thought - mornings had never done much for her in the years before she'd become an animagus - and it suited her well. Morning was a good time for news, for ideas, for catching people off guard before they had their coffee.
Rita was eating an apple as she left her home for the office, crunching into the bright green skin as her heels clicked on the pavement and her fingernails ting-ting-tinged against the poles of the black iron fence that separated the houses on her street from the road. It was a beautiful morning, crisp and cool, a taste of what was to come as summer faded into autumn.
As she walked, she mentally sorted through her tasks for the day. Chasing up contacts, chasing up staff, making sure the feature was ready for the Sunday edition. Being part-owner of the Independent was a lot of work, but she enjoyed it. It kept her days busy and her mind active, and she needed that.
She was almost to the office when she dropped her apple core into a bin, spotted a street seller with copies of the Prophet and stopped to buy one. It never hurt to see what the competition was writing.
She unfolded the front page and stopped in her tracks. Gawain Robards stared up at her from the front page.
Dead. The paper shook in her hands.
And not just him. Dawlish, Proudfoot, Pickering and Meyer as well. She'd met them all, known them all, but none as well as Gawain. Gawain who'd been a loyal friend to Rufus throughout his life, Gawain who had risked his own life on the night Rufus had died to save her life. Gawain, who had been the thinker to Rufus' action, who had ensured for so many years that her husband came home safely to her.
Dead. Just like that.
She stood like an island, buffeted by the crowd. She didn't notice any of them.